


swallow your bitters

by SouthernRust



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Age Difference, Between Seasons/Series, F/M, Five Kisses Challenge, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-07 22:02:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14090619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouthernRust/pseuds/SouthernRust
Summary: five times frank and rachel kissed.





	1. Rot

You don’t remember when she started showing up without Price in tow—just that the RV’s some bastardized mix of uncomfortable silences and one-sided chatter. Apparently the rough-and-tumble attitude don't discourage her much. You figured parking out in the middle of BFE would give her the hint she needed. It didn’t.  
  
She throws herself down into the passenger's seat and beams when Pompidou props his head on her knee instead of yours, and she gets to talking about shit you stopped putting to mind years ago—school politics and social drama and climbing personal mountains. The only highs you hear about nowadays are the kind you've got to sell—and the party cliffs aptly named Arcadia Heights. The two often go hand-in-hand.  
  
You wonder if she's been, if she heads out there and stakes a corner away from the commotion or if she moves on from one bonfire to the next. Girl like her s’gotta make her rounds, has to impress all them drama queens she claims to hate but talks to anyway. You want to say you don't know what that's like, palling around with associates you'd rather blunt your knuckles on than share a beer with. But you do.  
  
You know it better than most give you credit for.  
  
Knowing don’t mean shit. Knowing never taught you how to cope with an old friend choking on his own blood. The thought’s got you clacking your teeth on the bottle edge. The wad in your throat stays right where you found it.  
  
"You can't possibly be this bitter all the time, Frankie," she says, and it occurs to you that she stopped talking long enough to notice you broke your deal: pretend not to care and she'll pretend not to know you do. But you stopped listening for real. Rachel looks like you went and burned her favorite playbill. Just when you started to think offending her was impossible.  
  
One more mouthful of beer and the words _watch me_ sours the back of your tongue. You swallow it down and settle on, "Why's that?"  
  
Rachel looks a little too comfortable in your space, crossing those bare legs in your fucking chair. It don’t really feel like yours anymore. She’d snatched it up months ago, piece by piece. At some point—when you really _weren’t_ looking—she’d skimmed her eyes over every bit of trash in this shithole, decided, _yes, this’ll do,_ and made it hers.  
  
Rachel smiles a smile that says she just might give everything back, if you ask nice enough.  
  
“Because,” she teases, and you’re aware of the way her legs unfold, of the way she gets up and approaches like you’re just another part of the décor she’s claimed. You’re aware of the way she looks at you, the way she leans in and balances both hands on your knees. This is not a good idea. You tell her that.  
  
Her hair falls against your neck. Her lips, soft, press into your jaw. “You’d catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” She smiles against the edge of your mouth, and you know she knows exactly how much she’s gotten into _you._  
  
You never tell her that flies are attracted to rot. It’s the honey that sticks their wings together and leaves them all to die.


	2. Sticky Sweet

On cicada-scream afternoons like this you opt out of doing much of anything, just stretch out and shut the world in. It's a stale heat that has you cracking the RV windows for once, but all that does is let the air circulate from between your teeth and tear the breath from your lungs. You refill them with a healthy dose of green.  
  
She makes lemonade so sour even you can’t stand it, and after she laughs at your taste-test, you thrust the cup back at her and growl for sugar—lots of it. Rachel bows out and heads back to the sorry excuse you call a kitchen. You’re not a big fan of people rummaging where they don’t belong, but Rachel’s always been the exception to the rules you throw down. The way she made herself at home, you suspect she figured that out a lot sooner than you did.  
  
At least she respects the cardinal rule: don’t never touch the hot sauces. You arrange them by flavor, not heat level. And it’s a point of pride. Shit tastes better when it’s hotter, you told her once. When Rachel wrinkled her nose and called your taste buds 'lackluster,' you told her that avocado on toast sounds like the blandest breakfast spread you ever heard of. And that pineapple doesn’t go on _fucking pizza._  
  
This time you watch her work on a tea and lemonade concoction, something them foodies do out in California. One of her hobbies these days is getting you to try new things, new foods. She says it’s not about the food or whether you even like or it not. It’s the risk. Daring to be. Carpe Diem, and all that shit. The way she says it, like she’s talking directly to the campfires and cities she dreams of, makes you think there’s room for you to start believing it too.  
  
Maybe it’s just Rachel you’ve started believing in. She doesn’t stop looking for new experiences in a place that doesn’t change. But she tries—and she promises to include you as much as she can. You wish that counted for something.  
  
Rachel brings back two large plastic cups full of the stuff, and when she hands you one, she kisses her fingertips with an exaggerated _mwah,_ lands cross-legged beside you, and waits. Moment of truth, she likes to call it. A rite of passage.  
  
First time she made you try something, she said, “Don’t be scared, Frankie. You trust me, don’t you?”  
  
You told her you weren’t scared of anything. Never dignified the last with a response except you did answer it and still do—every time she hands over another thing to try.  
  
You down the drink 'til nothing but the ice is left. Not bad. Could be better with bourbon, and you tell her that. She smiles at you in that way you're still trying to decipher, like she's staring at a question right in the face but don’t know the answer to it. Maybe you don’t know, either.  
  
You fill the silence by grinding your teeth down on chunks of ice, punctuating an inner dialogue you’d rather ignore with a particularly harsh snap of your jaw. How many more of these days've you got left with her? How many more before she leaves for better horizons? The next question scraping at your mind starts with "who," and you frown something nasty, like Pompidou when bath day rolls around. Rachel asks what the face is for.  
  
Hackles raised, you tell her it's nothing. She doesn't believe you. Tough shit.  
  
She starts it—she almost always does—with that Polaroid smile and a laugh sweet enough to flavor your drink twice. She kisses your neck, draws her chilled tongue in a line all hazy slow, and starts on your belt with well-practiced fingers. You let her.  
  
When you kiss her back, you don't savor her so much as gulp the taste down by the mouthful. Your teeth nibble at her collarbone. She gasps. You bite harder, trying to crack her open. Your tongue wanders. Down her belly. Lower. Rachel melts faster than the ice cubes do, and you grin something hot and hidden. Pineapples and tea-lemonade aren’t half as good as the way she moans.


End file.
